About us

The Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS) at Queen Mary, University of London has embarked on a multi-year project to undertake academic research in relation to cloud computing and to disseminate the key findings of that research.

CCLS has extensive relevant expertise and experience and has a leading reputation in all aspects of computer and communications law and regulation. The QMUL Cloud Legal Project was initiated in October 2009 with generous financial support from Microsoft Corporation. See the members of the QM Cloud Legal Project team.

Cloud computing, whereby software, data processing and certain other key IT resources are delivered as a service via the Internet, is undergoing a stage of rapid technical evolution. Moreover, substantial resources are being devoted to the development of infrastructure, products and services for the cloud, and the overall commercial and societal impact of such investment is likely to be substantial. Nevertheless, there is currently considerable uncertainty as to the legal and regulatory status of several essential aspects of cloud computing.

The purpose of this project is to reduce that uncertainty via the production and dissemination of a series of scholarly yet practical research papers to address various legal and regulatory issues that will be fundamental to the successful development of cloud computing. It is intended that the research papers will demonstrate thought leadership in several complex and difficult areas of law and regulation that are of vital importance to governments and businesses globally.

Who is funding this project?

The QMUL Cloud Legal Project is mainly funded via a generous academic research grant from Microsoft, with additional support from the European Commission. Our research is academically independent of Microsoft, the European Commission and any other funding body.

What legal issues is the QMUL Cloud Legal Project looking at?

Our project began in 2009 and is scheduled to run until at least 2015. We are undertaking research, and producing working papers, on a range of cloud computing law topics, including: